


untethered

by penrosequartz



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Aromantic Asexual Character, Dissociation, Dreams and Nightmares, Gen, Queerplatonic Relationships, References to Depression, Road Trips, Sharing a Body, school shooting mention, shark metaphor ?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:20:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26677318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penrosequartz/pseuds/penrosequartz
Summary: adam milligan and the archangel michael are finally out of the cage. it seems as good a time for a road trip as any.
Relationships: Michael & Adam Milligan
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21
Collections: Asexual Supernatural Mini Bang 2020





	untethered

**Author's Note:**

> written for the 2020 ace spn minibang! i love angels and the idea of michael and adam sharing a body is one i find really interesting. i hope i did the concept justice!  
> super awesome art for this fic can be found [here](https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/84835348). thanks so much to blusxa for the amazing work!  
> as always, heed the tags. a playlist for this fic can be found [here!](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5tVMsP3svikZ6rPTDKXv0s?si=sjwiVuciRROYsAW6B5725g) the sections and main title come from the song "kids" by PUP.

**1\. just like the kids**

The hotel room is dim and dirty. There’s a pervasive sense of deep uncleanness that Michael can’t shake, and it occurs to him that humans have eaten, copulated, bathed, and possibly killed and died here. Adam appears not to notice; perhaps he simply doesn’t care.

“A bed,” Michael’s human host grins at it in wonder and simple relief. The angel can feel the facial muscles of the vessel bunching up, skin crinkling at the corners of the eyes. Within their shared sphere, he’s not sitting back as far as he should be, but he’s tempted by Adam’s experiences. He wants to test things out, to experiment with this new form he’s unexpectedly (gratefully) required. Thus, he is not in control of Adam’s body, nor is he distancing himself from it completely; for now, he resides in the liminal space between action and inaction, numbness and feeling, open and shut.

Humans are strange, disgusting, wondrous things. To think that his father - his traitorous, lying, powerful father - created them as simple tools of amusement is- is _sickening_. To think that he himself held a view of humans that was similar, prior to his descent into The Cage; to remember his own disdain and faked interest in humanity, and to recall his original recoil at the idea of taking a vessel… it is shameful, when he dwells on it. 

‘You wanna watch TV?’ Adam thinks at him, ‘It’ll distract you from your moping.’

‘I’m not _moping,’_ Michael bites back. Sometimes he forgets that their arrangement is so intimately and intricately balanced. He has not probed into Adam’s private thoughts - he’d like to think Adam would return the courtesy, or at least that an archangel would be able to notice when its mind is being read.

‘Come on, I’ll teach you about Earth stuff,’ Adam smiles again. Michael can still feel it, the skin sliding over muscle and bone, the lungs contracting and expanding like waves on the sea, the heart beating incessantly in the ribcage like a hummingbird hovering. He should sit back properly, but he doesn’t want to - he wants to understand. The drive for knowledge in an archangel is not supposed to be so large; the Ophanim are the data-gatherers of the Heavenly Host. Yet he has always been so curious (often using information to his own end, of course, but that’s beside the point). Such a tendency should have been his first hint that there were flaws in his father’s - no, in _Chuck’s_ \- design.

The television flickers on with certainty. Adam seems reassured by it, somehow. Television, the almighty American constant, unrestrained by questions of quality or accuracy, and churning and spiking like a living thing. Michael has often observed the wavelengths of Earth technology, let them fill his mind and eyes and ears (if they could be called that). He finds it fascinating; humanity seems to call, daily, desperately, into the void of the universe. Perhaps it is an attempt to fill their own.

A woman sits behind a desk on screen. Many words flash across the bottom, sound fills his ears - he can hear what she is saying, yet he cannot take it all in simultaneously. Adam seems distantly comprehensive.

‘What is she talking about?’ Michael asks him.

‘There’s been a shooting,’ Adam replies, and he sounds as if he’s underwater.

‘Are you alright?’ Michael asks.

There is a long pause.

‘When I was 8,’ Adam starts, and the words feel thick and heavy with something Michael cannot name, ‘Something happened, a shooting at a school. There’d been other ones before, but this one was… bad. A lot of people died.’

‘A lot of people die every day,’ Michael observes, then internally winces, ‘Sorry. That was insensitive.’

‘They were kids,’ Adam continues, unfazed, ‘When I was 14, there was another bad one. I mean, they were all bad… This one was in my state. I felt like I could have been one of those kids, you know?’

‘A victim?’ Michael asks.

‘Or a killer, I guess,’ Adam stares at the television screen, unseeing, not noticing that the news has moved on.

‘Then when I was 16, that was the worst one. Virginia Tech. You’d kind of forget they were happening, you know? But they were happening all the time. Kind of like monsters and hunters and angels and demons. I didn’t know about any of that, back then.’

Adam reaches into his back pocket for the phone they’d acquired with the help of Michael’s super-special angel powers and Adam’s basic knowledge of customer service employees, and digs through Wikipedia for a few moments. Michael steps back, fully; Adam needs privacy for the moment. The archangel finds he can now largely understand the news. He turns the volume down, anyway - the tone of the newsreader scrapes against his skull. Not that he really has a skull, per se.

Bombings. Shootings. Fires. Best new movies out now! China, Russia, Syria. Journalist in jail. Killer still at large. Secret foods to make you live longer.

“Jesus,” Adam says out loud, a quiet blade cutting through the now-low murmur of the TV, “He killed twenty kids.”

Michael takes note of Adam’s tone of voice and the information he has now revealed about himself, and resists the temptation to inch forward into his little liminal space. He wants to feel Adam’s emotions, his pain, his sadness, his disbelief. Michael does not want to be a human being (whoever would?), but he would like a test drive, just to _feel._

(Seeing Adam’s clenched jaw and glazed eyes evokes some kind of response in Michael. It is not a feeling - not as a human being knows a feeling. But it is something.)

‘Would you like to watch something else?’ Michael offers, observing Adam’s uncharacteristic stillness, perched like a building just before it crumbles.

‘Yes, please,’ Adam says.

The animated program is clearly-cut, with comical music and exaggerated characters. Michael likes it, but he mostly enjoys the slow bleed back into stability that he notices in Adam. He enjoys the way Adam laughs at the sarcastic grey and white hare, the coyote and the fast bird, the yellow canary and the cat. The on-screen adventures are quite violent, in places, but so unrealistic and disconnected from real pain that it’s almost therapeutic.

‘Are you… staring at me? From inside my own head?’ Adam asks, teasingly.

‘I am gauging whether you’re feeling better,’ Michael answers.

The human hesitates, ‘Why?’

It’s a fair question, Michael supposes, though not what he’d expected. As to the answer, maybe because he needs this vessel to stay afloat, so he can gather his thoughts. Or because he needs a guide on Earth.

‘Because,’ he says, deciding it is the most understandable, indecipherable, human response.

Adam smiles again.

* * *

**2\. passive disinterest**

The car runs remarkably well, given its age, but Dean had pointed them to the guy, so it was - apparently - to be expected. Adam had explained to him that Dean’s car was bought by his father in the 60’s, before mankind had made it to the moon, and had been rebuilt several times by determined Winchester hands.

Michael does not much care for cars, and certainly this car is neither aesthetically beautiful, nor of extraordinary capability; yet the archangel finds himself attached to it somehow, sentimental about the time he has spent in it so far. They have been travelling through Adam’s country.

The United States of America, contrasting the car, is both breathtaking in its geographical beauty, and of great capability both military-wise and economically (so he’s been told). Michael has, however, observed the fact that while the car exudes a sense of companionship and contentment, the USA contains a vast amount of unhappy and angry people. The country evokes in the archangel yet another response edging close to human emotion: a sense of foreboding.

Ignoring any difficult people they encounter on their journey largely fixes this problem. Michael places his usual order of a bottle of water with Adam and waits patiently, the smell of gasoline filling his nose. He supposes it’s odd, that Adam knows this car so well - well enough, at least, that his consciousness is still in here with Michael, allowing the archangel to remain behind while Adam pays for gas. Maybe that’s not a good sign, psychologically, but Michael doesn’t have the greatest knowledge of human cognition.

“Here’s your water, and I want you to try these,” Adam throws two items at him, and they land on the (technically) empty passenger seat as Adam slides into his.

‘You know that I am not actually sitting here, correct?’ Michael raises his eyebrow, and Adam grins before brushing the items onto the floor, the angel’s mentally-projected form phasing in and out of the solid objects. Michael had tried to figure out all the rules for interacting with his own projected body and other objects while he wasn’t controlling the vessel, but he’d quickly given up. There were too many variables, and frankly, Michael didn’t really care.

‘How could I forget,’ Adam directs back, ‘Don’t think I don’t know you just want me to drink more water.’

‘Obviously,’ Michael states flatly, ‘I’d rather not be in a vessel that has health issues.’

“Can that actually happen, with you here?” Adam wonders aloud.

Michael pauses, considering. Of course it’s not possible, seeing as Adam doesn’t actually have to eat or drink anything, but if he insists on eating and drinking then he should be consuming healthy things, and reinforcing good habits. If Michael has learned anything from his past, it’s that fear is an excellent motivator; fear of a vitamin deficiency will do fine.

‘I’m not sure,’ he says, ‘This particular arrangement has never been tried before, at least not for an extended period of time, as far as I’m aware.’

“Great,” Adam mumbles quietly, ‘You can try the chips at the motel. We’re almost in Flagstaff.’

‘Salt and vinegar,’ Michael hums, gazing at the packet. He’s always sat back when Adam has eaten or showered, or indeed gone to the bathroom. The inner workings of the human body are disgusting. But he’s interested to try the things Adam gets for him now, usually because Adam likes seeing his reactions to the sensations of different foods. The chillies had been eye-opening (and eye-watering, too).

The road is flat, long, mostly straight; the tan-grey sand is sprinkled with small green shrubs, clusters of emeralds amongst the plain stone. There’s a mountain up ahead, and the shrubs turn to trees as they get nearer to it, the white rectangles of houses and businesses emerging from the surroundings. It’s relatively peaceful, despite the thickening flow of traffic, and Michael feels… at home, he supposes. From what Castiel told him on their latest Winchester emergency-assistance-slash-awkward-coffee-catchup (there’d been a few by now), Heaven is a mess, and the few angels left are still putting out fires from his irritating little brother, desperately trying to keep the place running. He should feel obliged to go and help them, but he doesn’t. Angels have much more power than any human hunters, but they left him down in the cage to rot all the same.

He doesn’t blame them. He was different then. He expects he’ll be different yet again by the time he and Adam finish their trip, and probably wholly changed once more by the time he does get to Heaven, if that time ever comes around.

They pull into their nightly accommodation, a flat green and white building with a cracked parking lot but just enough trees to give the illusion of pleasance. _Quality Inn,_ the sign proclaims. Michael has some doubts.

Despite the archangel’s unique ability to con his way into any place on Earth, Adam has (mostly) insisted on staying under the radar.

‘Besides,’ he’d said, ‘If we go where all the rich assholes go, and do what all the rich assholes do, we’ll just end up turning into assholes ourselves.’

Michael doesn’t mind. If the mattress is disgusting and the roof is sagging and the carpet is stained, he simply retreats inside the vessel, and lets Adam deal with it all.

The bed at the so-called _Quality Inn_ is quite comfortable, respectively, and Adam sinks onto it like a drowning man grabbing at a piece of wood. Adam had made him watch _Titanic_ a few nights ago, but Michael didn’t much care for it, if he’s being honest. He much preferred DiCaprio in _Romeo + Juliet_ , which they’d caught half of on free-to-air after walking around San Antonio for five hours.

‘I’m so tired,’ Adam thinks, even though it’s only 5PM, ‘I’ve gotta teach you how to drive.’

‘I don’t think I’ll be able to get a valid licence,’ Michael points out, and it feels warm, to be here with Adam in this small room, to be floating in the void of his mind without obligation or destiny or grand plan.

‘Eat the chips tomorrow,’ Adam murmurs, ‘I wanna film it. Put it on… TikTok.’

There is a falling sensation, a deep dragging-down feeling that Michael frowns at.

‘Are you falling asleep?’ The archangel asks, confused, ‘Adam?’

He does not receive a reply.

Adam wakes up slowly, and Michael can feel a tingling sensation as he does so, a brief dawn before the real sunrise.

‘Did you sleep well?’ Michael enquires.

Adam shrugs, but only one shoulder of their vessel moves; it always takes a little while to adjust in the morning.

‘You’ve not fallen asleep like that before,’ Michael states.

“Sure I have,” Adam says aloud, “Sometimes you just gotta pass out, you know?”

‘Do you?’ Michael asks, somewhat alarmed by this new human physiological revelation, ‘You haven’t been overworking yourself, have you?’

‘I just need more sleep sometimes, man,’ Adam smiles, ‘It’s usually because I’m depressed.’

Michael considers this.

‘Do I… depress you?’

Adam laughs.

“No, Michael,” he swings his legs off the bed, “You don’t depress me. I’m going to have a shower, we’re going to the canyon today.”

Michael remains in bed, still disconcerted by the distance between him and Adam. The human doesn’t know this hotel room at all, not really; and yet Michael feels no pull towards the bathroom, no necessary attachment to his host. He felt it before, he knows he did. And now it’s gone.

Adam doesn’t need sleep either, not with him here. Michael lets him, doesn’t interfere - it seems to give the human comfort. Besides, it’s calming, lying there, half ‘asleep’ himself. Like he’s on standby.

* * *

**3\. a room without walls**

It’s not a misnomer, let’s put it that way.

Michael hadn’t- he hadn’t expected to be so completely awed like this ever again. Not since Chuck, not since Heaven. And he’d known that the Grand Canyon was, well. Grand.

But it’s _huge._ He feels so inadequate and tiny and unimportant in this little human body staring out at this great expanse of rock, clouds passing overhead and casting valley-of-death shadows down into the gullies and gorges. The stripes in the stone show age that outlasts civilisations, and Michael knows, rationally, that he’s older than the Earth, and yet, he isn’t. He’s simultaneously the eternal warrior and the irrelevant creation, the favourite son and the forgotten soldier. He stands alone atop this platform, staring into the vast brushstrokes of nature, and yet Adam stands beside him, unknown and unimportant and unimaginably kinder than he has any right to be.

‘It’s called Angel’s Window,’ Adam tells him, and Michael notices that they’re sharing the body equally now, two halves both rendered uniformly incapacitated by the sheer magnitude of the world.

‘It’s beautiful,’ Michael says, and there’s tears on his cheeks, and he’s not sure if they’re Adam’s or… or his. 

Perhaps an angel’s emotions are more human than he realised.

‘How old is it, really?’ Adam absently asks as they finally drive back to the hotel.

‘How old is what?’ Michael replies.

‘Everything,’ Adam parks the car and sits, staring into nothingness.

Michael follows his gaze. Adam seems… off, somehow.

‘It depends on how you look at it. Chuck-‘ Michael refuses to call him his father, ‘Chuck was a writer, first and foremost, and all characters, places… all stories need a backstory, you see.’

Adam glances down at his hands, folded disjointedly in his lap.

‘He wrote a backstory for the world?’

‘Exactly,’ Michael nods. There’s a glaze over Adam’s eyes, and his fingers are stretching and contracting in and out of fists in a slow, repetitive way.

‘So… are you older than the world, or are you younger?’ Adam asks.

Michael hums, ‘I don’t know. Does it matter?’

Adam is silent for a long moment.

‘I guess it doesn’t.’

Michael turns to face him fully now, giving him a once-over. He’s definitely slower than he should be, drawn out, muscles relaxed in an unsettling and somewhat sinister fashion.

‘Are you feeling alright, Adam?’ The archangel asks.

‘I’m… it’s fine, actually, at least at first,’ Adam breathes, ‘I imagine it’s pretty weird for you.’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Let’s go inside,’ Adam shakes his head, and slowly gets himself out of the car, ‘I feel like I'm melting.’

Michael knows little about human physiology, but he’s sure that humans don’t just melt on the spot. If he was in angel form, he probably could, though he’d never tried. That was always Gabriel’s thing.

Adam’s head hits the headboard instead of the pillow this time, and he lets out a soft _ouch_ as Michael curiously regards him from the foot of the bed. 

‘Is this to do with your sleep? Your depression?’ Michael questions, ‘If it is health related, I could try to fix-‘

“Don’t fuck around in my brain,” Adam growls.

Michael blinks.

‘Alright,’ Michael nods, ‘No... no fucking around. What about coffee?’

Adam huffs, ‘You don’t actually know how to make coffee.’

He’s right, and besides, Michael’s not about to take over the vessel, get it out of bed, make coffee, and get it back into the bed just so Adam can drink it. That’s ridiculous.

‘I had a shrink explain it to me once,’ Adam holds one hand up to the sky and inspects his own fingers, like he’s seeing them for the first time.

‘I don’t really remember what she said, but it was something like… feeling like life is a video game, or something. Dissociation. Doesn’t really feel like a video game to me, though… more like a movie, or a neighbour that you’re spying on.’

‘I’m not sure I understand,’ Michael says, apologetically.

‘It’s like... like when you’re watching things happen to someone, and that person is you. It doesn’t feel like you, doesn’t even- it’s almost like they don’t look like you or sound like you or think like you at all, but it’s you. And I get slower, too. Like when the audio is out of sync with the video.’

Michael remains silent. He still can’t wrap his head around what Adam is saying. How could it be possible, to not know that you were you?

‘Nearly walked out in front of a truck when I was a kid,’ Adam continues, now regarding his palm with suspicion, ‘I saw it, but my brain was too slow. I get stuck outside the timestream of everyone else and it’s hard to get back in.’

‘In The Cage,’ Michael realises, ‘You were like this in The Cage.’

‘Yeah, I guess so,’ Adam lets his arm flop down.

‘Is this why I’ve been able to drift apart from you?’ Michael asks, mostly to himself.

‘Dunno,’ Adam sighs, ‘Probably. I’ve got a couple tricks to make it go away, but I don’t know if they’re going to work.’

Adam spends the next few minutes categorising the things he can sense around the room, and Michael considers this new development in his human education. If he put his present consciousness through his past actions, would he feel distant from himself? Disconnected?

Ashamed would be a better word, he thinks. He’d have to bitterly accept his own actions - there would be no doubt about who was responsible; it was only him in his head then. Now he has company.

This strange phenomenon Adam is experiencing is different to that, and Michael finds it intriguing, as well as troubling. He has been learning a lot about this planet and the way it works recently. He risks a glance at his host - Adam looks better, now, at least a little. More alive, as he tiredly rubs his eyes.

The archangel turns the day’s other events over in his head; gently, like he’s handling a precious treasure, from the flirty waitress at the diner in the morning, to the couple that had kissed for a photo at one of the canyon platforms they’d visited, to the feeling he’d sensed emanating from Adam as he caught sight of some provocative poster in the window of a passing building.

‘You-‘ Adam begins, just as Michael tries, ‘I-‘

‘Go on,’ Adam grins, and Michael shifts awkwardly.

‘Humans,’ Michael says, ‘They copulate.’

“I should have gone first,” Adam groans, running a hand over his face.

‘Just- this is a genuine question, Adam,’ Michael’s human features display his obvious discomfort, and he scrunches his nose up at the strange feeling, ‘But you didn’t… this morning, our waitress was talking with you. Flirting with you. And- well, I’m here. I’m not sure how comfortable I would… in the long term-‘

‘I’m gonna stop you right there, buddy,’ Adam shakes his head, ‘I don’t really go in for that sort of thing.’

Michael pauses. He hadn’t known that was an option, for humans, but it certainly makes his life easier.

‘Neither do I,’ the archangel offers.

Adam laughs.

‘I used to,’ he explains, ‘I used to think I just wasn’t doing it right, or something. My prom night, man. It was fun. But it just didn’t sit totally right with me? I don’t know. I’ve never really been interested in anyone, romantically, physically… not the same way other people seemed to be.’

‘Well,’ Michael says, relieved, ‘That’s that, then. I interrupted you.’

‘It was stupid, don’t worry about it,’ Adam smiles, ‘We should get actual food tomorrow. Damn, I was going to make sure I did that properly, but I got distracted.’

‘I still don’t understand why you insist on showering and eating,’ Michael sighs.

‘It’s nice to feel whole, instead of empty,’ Adam says, glancing at the angel beside him.

Michael’s projected form betrays his emotions (emotions?) again, bringing forth a soft smile, as he bids Adam goodnight.

* * *

**4\. maxed out**

the corridor before us is. empty stone walls and torches and this is Hell, isn’t it? something isn’t right there is a grate on the floor. There is a Sound

rattles. Like chains are underneath? he steps forward and He steps forward. we are walking in the same space but we are not the same

two sets of vision from the same set of eyes look Down. there is a Snarl and Lucifermybrother jumps at us Teeth falling from his mouth and there is Teeth on the floor and there is Teeth ripping into us but we are not moving or Running or Screaming

And Then There Is Fire. It 

{short-circuit}

pain and pain and [nothingness. absolute emptiness for thousands of miles]

Where is my fallen Brother? [where’s sam?]

Where is my Father? [where are my brothers? where did sam go?]

This is the same. This is a memory. We are asleep. Everything is okay.

This is the same. This is a memory.

This is 

Adam?

Adam?

Don’t leave. Adam? Where are you?

{something-behind-you}

[michael? we’re dreaming. michael? this is a dream, isn’t it? this happened before. or- no, hang on-]

Adam wakes up first, lethargic but scared, turns on the light, sees Michael shivering beside him still caught in the place where nightmares breed.

“It’s not real,” he mumbles, “Michael. Wake up.”

‘Lucifer,’ Michael sounds pained, eyes still shut, pleading.

“He’s not here, Michael,” Adam’s more awake now, grabs the angel’s shoulder - not real, not there.

“Aren’t I?” Comes Lucifer’s voice, and Adam turns his head so fast he almost breaks his own neck, sees a flash of red eyes and he’s waking again, and Michael is there with him, and they both stare at the ceiling trying to even their breathing.

‘That’s never happened before,’ Michael says shakily. He’d been awake, in Adam’s head; he’d been asleep, dreaming; he’d been in The Cage again, angry and terrified and alone, not-alone, drowning.

‘You get used to it,’ Adam replies, ‘I got them a lot, before- you know.’

‘That was- that was a nightmare,’ Michael states.

‘Yes.’

‘Right,’ the angel nods his head, ‘I could keep you awake, you know. If you wanted. I know you like to sleep, but… well, that was. Awful.’

Adam rolls onto his side. 

‘You had a nightmare, too,’ he points out, ‘Was that my fault? Did I… drag you in, or something?’

‘I don’t know,’ Michael says softly, ‘I don’t know how this works.’

It’s the truth. It’s startling, and scary, and it makes Michael feel very small.

Adam doesn’t say anything for a long time.

‘No sleep, then,’ he finally agrees, ‘I can do that.’

‘We don’t have to,’ the angel assures him.

“No sleep,” Adam repeats, and lets his eyes rest back on the roof.

Michael thinks he understands the reluctance. Adam doesn’t want to be reminded that he’s got an archangel inside him. Maybe he is ashamed, because of what Michael has done in the past, or maybe he simply wants a normal life. Michael can’t give him that, not while he’s here, in Adam’s body. The right thing to do - the thing that Lucifer would never do, that Chuck would never do - would be to return to Heaven, give Adam his body back, and say goodbye. He will not be manipulative, forcing Adam into anything he doesn’t want. He refuses to go back to his old ways.

That’s what he’ll do, he tells himself. At the end of this little roadtrip, he’ll go.

* * *

**5\. i don't care about nothing (but you)**

Adam is teaching him how to drive, which is… terrifying. He’s an archangel of the Lord, he’s slain demons and monsters since the beginning of time, he’s more powerful than most things in the universe, and he is scared shitless being behind the wheel. The idea of crashing Adam’s car, this thing that has become their home, of damaging something that symbolises their journey together - even though he knows he won’t crash, even though he knows they won’t be injured, it’s painful to think about. 

He thinks there may be a deeper issue there than the car.

Despite his fear, he thinks he’s managing admirably. Merging lanes is a bit of a challenge when he’s only got two eyes. Adam is encouraging, kind, occasionally mocking in a friendly way; Michael had found that aspect of interaction challenging, at first, but he’s come to enjoy their banter.

His terror at losing Adam bubbles away inside him, even as he convinces himself that leaving is the best option. Without Michael’s presence, Adam will be able to lead a fulfilling, _normal_ life. He can visit his brothers, he can make new friends, he can sleep and eat and shower and do human things that Michael just can’t understand.

He can- he can have nightmares, and he can be fragile and vulnerable, and he can be hurt.

Michael will be there to greet him, when he finally ascends to Heaven.

It occurs to him, as they make their way from Flagstaff to San Bernardino, that he’s never been so attached to someone before. Chuck had been… a hugely powerful, strong figure, infallible and untouchable. Lucifer had always been Michael’s closest sibling, before everything, but that time was long since over. All of the other angels had been secondary to Lucifer’s brilliant light.

He thinks he sees some of that light in Adam, the shining beauty of the past, before Lucifer’s bitterness and selfishness took hold. The son who was a genius in his own right, who loved fiercely and dauntlessly. Michael misses his brother. He doesn’t want to miss Adam as well. It hurts, knowing that he’ll have to.

“It’s weird, not feeling anything,” Adam says aloud, hands on the steering wheel, eyes scanning the road ahead.

Michael hums, not knowing what to say, not knowing exactly what he means.

‘Compared to down there, you know?’ Adam frowns at a black sports car as it merges lanes, “Hey, they’re called turn signals for a reason! You know, to signal when you turn?”

Michael darts his eyes downward at that. He’s sure he’s forgotten to indicate in one of their previous driving lessons. 

‘In Hell, it was so… everything was so loud and painful all the time, and now we’re back up here and it’s…’ Adam trails off.

Michael nods. He understands, he thinks. Perhaps. Physical sensation has always been a- well, _touchy_ subject for him, something in the realm of misinterpretation even when he’s sure he’s experienced it before. Things like pain and sensory overload test his memory and his perception of himself. 

‘Like you’re being attacked by sharks,’ Michael states, and Adam gives him an odd look, smiling and frowning at the same time.

Michael continues hesitantly, not wanting to overstep, trying to relate while still knowing that his experience was different. That he is a different kind of entity. That Hell is unique and personal for everyone who gets stuck down there, even before accounting for spiritual and physical characteristics.

‘You’re getting pulled under,’ Michael begins, ‘And you’re being bitten into, and it hurts and the water is filling up your lungs and all you want is for the sharks to go away, for you to stop drowning. But then, the sharks vanish, and you start to float, and you’re alone in the ocean. And that becomes the problem.’

Adam nods slowly, brows furrowed. Michael solemnly accepts that there are some differences you simply can’t bridge with a weird metaphor.

‘Yeah,’ Adam replies eventually, eyes set on the road, ‘I guess.’

Michael convinces Adam to let them stay somewhere nicer than usual, because Adam deserves a comfortable hotel room if he’s not going to simply pass out in it, and besides, money isn’t real anyway, and capitalism is a scam. Adam laughs at that. They end up staying at some Fairfield thing. No fields, fair or otherwise, in this part of San Bernardino. Michael barely pays attention to the name or the room number, simply noticing Adam’s sudden discomfort, sudden scraping away at the inside of his own skin.

‘Are you alright?’ Michael asks.

Adam nods hurriedly, ‘It’s fine, it’s just weird not sleeping. And not being tired or anything. Don’t worry about it.’

Michael sighs.

‘We can sleep if you want to, Adam. Nightmares aren’t real. Or, well, these nightmares have already happened, and they won’t be happening again any time soon. I can deal with them, I just don’t want you to have to go through it. I don’t want you to be on edge.’

Adam fidgets, tense and preoccupied.

‘Though it seems that will happen either way,’ Michael sits down in front of Adam’s twitching knee as the human slumps onto the end of the bed, the angel’s legs crossed, controlled and disciplined, Adam's body jittery and disjointed.

‘Just sleep,’ Michael smiles, shaking his head at Adam’s half-hearted noise of protest, ‘I’ll watch over you as best I can. It’s alright. Just sleep.’

* * *

**6\. pretty good to feel something**

Just as emotions and physical sensations are often a mystery to Michael, he’s not entirely sure if he’s ever had a dream. Not a nightmare, like his and Adam’s shared tapestry of trauma, but a dream, strange and enticing and just slightly off. 

Adam is walking through a maze, turning right and left, frustrated not just because there is no end in sight, but because no turn seems to lead to a dead end. Michael follows his every move, and yet-

‘Michael?’ Adam says, or thinks, or feels, and in the dreamscape it seems like a question, and it seems like an answer, and it seems like a conclusion.

Michael floats above the maze, a being of sound and light. He cannot turn his head, because he has no head. He must have eyes, though, for he can see. He can see everything, for thousands of miles. The maze goes on forever.

‘Left,’ he feels himself say, but he is sure he has no mouth. He isn’t worried. He feels at peace. 

Somewhere in the midst of the dream, Adam finds a path of sand, and suddenly they are on a beach, the water stretching out ahead of them. There are children, somewhere, their laughter trailing along the breeze. Michael does not see them, but he knows that Sam and Dean are here. A baseball thwacks behind them. The smell of sunscreen fills Michael’s nostrils, and suddenly he seems in that place of shared experience again, like the way he felt at Angel’s Window. Sunscreen and baseball and contentment, even though Michael has never used sunscreen in his entire existence (and is a little mystified by baseball, he has to admit).

And then they are separate again, and Michael knows that this is where the story stops. Waves lap at his ankles, swelling up around him, and the water begins to drag him away. Adam stands immobile, his eyes filling with tears, as the water reaches Michael’s knees. Then he moves, wading toward him, reaching out his hand, words on his lips that Michael can’t quite understand, as the water reaches Michael’s waist, and suddenly he has no waist, and he is an angel again, floating upwards and into a door in the sun.

He wakes, and there is a moment where he feels the touch of his own ghostly unreal skin, the soft impact of his hand on his own thigh, and he doesn’t know who he is, or where he is, or what he is. 

And then he remembers.

Adam is sitting up in bed, staring at him. The red readout on the digital alarm clock reads 03:27. Then 03:28. A siren somewhere outside.

‘Don’t leave me,’ Adam thinks at him quietly, maybe even unintentionally, and Michael realises that those were the words Adam was saying on the beach. He feels the dream slipping into obscurity with each second that ticks by, leaving only a sense of guilt and loneliness.

Michael makes his way up to where Adam sits, and lays himself over the covers beside him.

‘Don’t you want a normal life?’ Michael asks, ‘Don’t you want to eat and sleep and have friends and- and play baseball and wear sunscreen?’

Adam looks at him for a long moment, and bursts out laughing. 

‘Michael,’ he smiles, ‘We can eat and sleep and have friends together, right? Aren’t we friends?’

Michael considers this. Adam means more to him than anybody else ever has, maybe with the exception of Chuck (who doesn’t count) or Lucifer (which didn’t end well). They are friends, he supposes, and counterparts, or allies, or… something else, which Michael can’t describe. 

‘We can play baseball, if you want. I mean, not at the same time, but I could teach you how to play. And there’s not really a point in wearing sunscreen, because you can just, you know. Magic the cancer away, or whatever.’

Adam pauses.

‘Do you _want_ to leave?’ He asks eventually.

Michael considers this, too. Heaven is waiting for him, but it’s not going away any time soon. Besides, he feels less allegiance to the Heavenly Host than he does to Adam, or even the Winchesters. The longer he looks at Adam in silence, the more he realises that he definitely doesn’t want to leave. He wants to stay here, learning to drive and feel emotions and play baseball for as long as he can.

‘No,’ Michael replies, ‘I don’t.’

‘So, stay,’ Adam says. And that’s that.

* * *

**7\. epilogue**

The earth rumbles under his feet and for a moment, he’s flying - not flying like he used to, like it was nothing, like it was normal; flying like he worked for it, like he’s chasing it, like it’s something he will never stop appreciating. And then something wrong, an imbalance, an imperfection in the concrete or a rock on the sidewalk and the ground is rushing up to meet him, and he tries to roll like Adam taught him. 

Scrapes on his hands and knees, healed without a thought. A tingling sensation that might be pain, or perhaps satisfaction with the way the red fades away. 

‘Nice,’ Adam thinks at him, and Michael smiles. 

It comes naturally now, the smiling. He no longer finds it disturbing; he can tune out the background programs his body seems to run and simply… enjoy the experience of living, and being on Earth, and having a physical form. He’d thought he would never feel the way humans do (and, of course, he’s not sure if he really does - descriptions of emotions confuse him, and when he tries to explain how _he_ feels, Adam just sort of nods along, shrugging). But he does feel _something,_ undefinable and immaterial as it is.

He’s not sure if it really matters, in the end. He’s here. Adam is here. And he, Michael, former archangel and Adam’s companion, is learning to skateboard.

There’s something about it, the way it vibrates beneath his feet, the way the movement shudders up into his bones - Adam’s bones. The bones beneath their skin. 

Sometimes, Michael tries to restrict his grace a little, lets it hum within, preventing its ridges and flares rising to the surface. He lets the bruises form on his legs, lets the scrapes scab over. Nothing serious. Just a reminder: _I’m here. I’m here. I’m here._

When he feels the sun on his skin, warm and holy. When he hears music, tinny from the shitty car speakers, crossing the vastness of radio static. When he catches a glimpse of himself in the window of a supermarket, and the reflection is smiling, but he’s not sure which one of them it is. They’re starting to blend, ever so slightly. They still have conversations; two separate entities residing in one body, two consciousnesses, two ways of thinking and being. And yet, like the way people pick up phrases and mannerisms from friends and peers, they mesh and intertwine.

Adam calls it ‘dancing’, but Michael has never danced before, and Adam says he himself has ‘two left feet’, whatever that means.

Michael sits on the skateboard, feet resting on the grass just off the sidewalk, and breathes.

‘Burger?’ Adam asks, and Michael sits back, and lets Adam take them to McDonald’s.

**Author's Note:**

> leave a comment if you enjoyed this! love to you all in these hard times :)  
> and once again, thanks to the organisers of ASMB for keeping us going and facilitating this great experience!


End file.
